Hello All! I hope everyone had a great holiday, and that you’re fairly recovered from all the family and excitement by now. A large part of my holidays was seeing the Hobbit with other geeky friends, which inspires this post about headwear from the Hobbit movies!

Bofur, the optimistic toymaking dwarf, brother to Bombur and cousin to Bifur, can be recognized in Peter Jackson’s films by his distinctive hat and jovial personality. Luckily for all you Bofur fans, Smree has posted a great crochet pattern that even has the same upturned brim and earflaps! Using a skein of brown yarn and gray yarn, along with an H and I hook, I think she captured its essence perfectly!

Of course, one of the most memorable characters from the Hobbit films is the Elvenking of the Mirkwood elves (and Legolas’ father), Thranduil. Not only does he have impeccable cheekbones (curse you and your inhuman beauty, Lee Pace!), he carries off an incredible crown of branches and leaves that mark him as the elven ruler. Katy R. over at Deviantart has created a beautiful replica of this crown out of wire, DAS (an air-hardening clay), resin and a few coats of paint. You can see her photo tutorial here.

Hopefully, these projects have inspired you to go see the Hobbit movies (if you haven’t yet), and to made your own stylish hats for everyday wear!

With the coming of March, my mind turns to starting my container garden. I love working in the dirt, planting seedlings and then cooking with the lovely veggies and herbs that I watched grow. It’s a labor of love for me.

Last year, the concept of garden art fascinated me and I’ve spent several months thinking about how to decorate my planters. While surfing the Net for ideas, I came upon this and was blown away!

Mario inspired garden art made with Sculpey and chicken wire!

Kalapusa made a Piranha plant, a teething baby Piranha plant, a suspicious carrot and my absolute favorites, some green thumbs! She has also created a video on the making of the Momma Piranha so that you can see the basic steps in her process.

Two weeks ago the world lost an amazing woman, one who had a profound impact on many people and forever changed the worlds of science fiction and fantasy. I will always have a place in my heart for Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, which I read, devotedly, throughout my teen years. In her honor, here are a few of my favorite crafty dragons from around the web:

Cthulhu Crochet and Cousins, a long-time favorite blog of mine, showcased a couple of adorable dragons, based on this (free!) pattern from Lucy Ravenscar on Ravelry. They aren’t strictly Pernese-style dragons, but they’re too adorable not to include!

And this one, by Craftster user Faren, is a two-fer: the adorable clay dragon caught my eye (oh how I want one!), but below it, you can also see an embroidered dragon flying across a painted map of Pern. That’s some serious fan-love!

Finally, there are these stuffed “shoulder dragons,” by Cheryl Simshauser, made to look like McCaffrey’s fire-lizards. I love the gold one! She seems to be looking right at you.

As many internet commenters have already said, “R.I.P. Ms. McCaffrey – Long May Your Dragons Fly!”

The charm stands less than four centimeters tall, but is chock-full of carefully rendered details. I can’t get over how the artist, Shiela, made a weapon like the lancer actually look cute, even when spattered in blood!

I’d love to see the rest of Delta Squad in chibi-charm form. It’d make a great bracelet to wear to a Gears of War 3 release party later this year.